


Tigerlily

by theweddingofthefoxes



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Car Sex, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Teasing, come stains, messy handjobs, strip club au, well maybe not exactly that order
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-09-15 16:36:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9244871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweddingofthefoxes/pseuds/theweddingofthefoxes
Summary: From this prompt by cosleia: "Hux and Ren are strippers at rival clubs. Hux's club is very classy, with a 1950s Hollywood aesthetic; Ren's is wild and crazy, with feathers and disco balls and glitter. Hux hates Ren, hates Ren's club--and hates that he is so obsessed. Meanwhile, Ren is amused by the stiff, prudish redhead who keeps showing up at his club. But one day, Ren decides to see what Hux's act is like~"Of course, they can pretend they're scouting out one another's acts all they like. It doesn't change the fact they're very interested in each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Well tonight out on the streets I'm gonna follow you_   
>  _And tell you all about a scene that you would kill for_   
>  _You're gonna love what's running right in front of you_   
>  _But you won't see it by the light of the sun_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> -"Tigerlily", La Roux

“He’s back again,” one of Ren’s coworker says, and Ren doesn’t need to ask who. He knows.

Hux is in a suit and tie this time, looking for all the world like a regular customer, but Ren knows better. This guy Hux, he works at the Golden Tiger, on the other end of the block, which is where people go when they want to pretend they’re too classy to have any fun when they go out. Well, so he hears. So everyone tells him. He hasn’t actually been, but sometimes customers will confide that they find it a bit stuffy, and they think Ren’s club is more fun. “Golden Tiger is where you go if the smallest bills in your wallet are hundreds and you have a thing for English accents,” someone told him once, not long after Ren started at the French Kiss. “Here’s where you come if you want your shirt to rain glitter when you take it off before you go to bed drunk.”

Everyone besides Hux, Ren guesses. When he comes over to him under the guise of flirting, he hisses in Hux’s ear, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m a paying customer,” Hux answers mildly, holding a hundred between his pointer and middle fingers. “I have every right to be here.”

Ren knows full well that Hux has probably just made that hundred half an hour ago, it’s probably still warm from being tucked against his ass. He hates the look on Hux’s face as he hold it just out of reach. He doesn’t reach for it.

“Too good for me?” Hux asks.

“Go buy yourself a sense of humor,” Ren snaps back. Hux is there to observe, Ren knows from past experience, get some measure of his competition. He doesn’t want any lipstick kisses left on his cheeks or neck, and he doesn’t want a feather boa thrown around his neck, and he doesn’t want to sit in the splash zone of any glitter. He doesn’t want to be teased or pulled up on stage. He just wants to watch and drink and annoy Ren by offering him money.

When Hux leaves, Ren comes back over to his empty table, where the hundred is tucked under his empty glass, along with a note on a napkin that just says _You wish_.

Well. No harm in putting that money back into the economy, is there? Ren decides he’s going to visit the Golden Tiger for the first time the following night. Instead of his normal nighttime garb, sparkling red silk and red lipstick, he wears his simplest suit and ties his hair back in bun that’s messed up just so, in a way he knows suits him. He pockets all his tips from the previous night and goes to, as Hux always does, observe.

Definitely a different vibe, sure, but Ren hates the fact that he kinda likes it. Very posh. The attention to detail is incredible, as is the attention to the customer. You get what you pay for, Ren muses. If any of the dancers here have seen him before, they definitely don’t recognize him. Not even Hux! Hux approaches him, asks him in a voice that Ren has never heard–smokier, beguiling– if he wants a dance, and it’s clear Hux has absolutely no clue who he’s talking to.

“From you? Of course.” Ren is disguising his own voice a bit too, not speaking in the flirty salesman kind of voice he uses at the French Kiss, but deeper, exuding as much masculinity as he can. 

This is too good. This is way, way too good. It’s worth the realization that Hux is fucking electric, very, very good at flirting, at dancing, at keeping the attention squarely on himself. Hux whispers in his ear, wants to know if he wants anything more, _still_ not recognizing him, and Ren smiles after kissing his hand. 

“You wish,” he says.

There’s a flicker of confusion in Hux’s eyes, and then Ren pulls his hair free and shakes it out, grinning. A hundred dollars is a very, very small price to pay to see the way Hux’s face falls, as he puts the pieces together, the way he stalks off, his pride in tatters. Even more pleasing is the fact that Hux still has the bill, which Ren has helpfully written his phone number on. He might get a text cussing him out, or maybe he’ll get drunk dialed. Ren can’t wait to see what will happen next. He orders another drink.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some late-night (well, early-morning) texts get thrown back and forth.

It’s 4 am and Ren’s phone is buzzing so much that the phone threatens to vibrate its way off his bedside table. For once, Ren didn’t have to spend an hour cleaning off makeup, and he instead climbed right into bed after returning home from the Golden Tiger. He’d had a bit too much fun flirting with Hux’s coworkers, who didn’t recognize him at all–he’d been careful to re-tie his hair after Hux had stalked off.

He slaps at the table a few times, nearly knocking over a couple of stray water bottles that were luckily capped, and then finds the phone, still buzzing with incoming messages.

_You’re an utter fucker, you know that?_

_At least when I come to your cheap-ass club, I’m honest with who I am and what my intentions are._

_Though I guess it was fair of me to not recognize you without that garish two-dollar lipstick and some Party City glitter up your ass._

Ren grins, despite how bleary he feels. 

_Good morning, sweetheart. Nice to know you saw my number._

Hux text back immediately.

_Do not call me sweetheart. I just got off work, making more than you do in a month at your tacky little talent show. It’s a treat for me to go and see how much better I am than everyone there._

_Oh really? You think you make more than me?_

_I’m certain of it._

_That must be why you can afford to come to my tacky little talent show so often, huh? You have to work at the snooty club to keep up with your spending habits._

_If that’s how you see it, then you ought to thank me for making sure you have a job._

Oh, this is too fun now.

_I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t realize you resented spending so much on me. Maybe I should come to your club more often. You came right onto me last night, didn’t you? I think you were genuinely enjoying yourself._

There’s ten minutes of nothing, during which time Ren almost falls asleep again. But then–

_Do not call me baby._

_What would you prefer?_

_Call me by my name and as little as possible._

_Would you prefer to be the one doing the talking when you’re grinding on me?_

_You deceived me and you knew it._

_And it’s perfectly normal to text someone at four in the morning because you’re annoyed that they deceived you._

_If you come back to my club I’ll be more than just annoyed._

Ren laughs out loud. This is the most open invitation he has ever received to do anything. He knows that Hux understands the best way to get Ren to do something is to shout, veins standing out in the neck, that it is forbidden. If Ren hadn’t already been determined to come see Hux again at the Golden Tiger, he would be now.

 _Get some beauty sleep, Hux,_ he texts, feeling almost fond. 

But not too fond.

_God knows you need it._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux decides to pull a little reverse psychology on his new least favorite customer.

A taste of his own medicine is something Hux isn’t used to, but since Ren has started coming to his club the way he goes to Ren’s, it’s one that he’s had to force down. Ren doesn’t come often enough for him to feel like he’s memorized Hux’s schedule or anything, but definitely enough for it to feel deliberate. 

Hux tells himself all the time that Ren looks ridiculous and cheap in his French Kiss outfits and makeup and glitter than ranges from A Lot to Way Too Much, shoving away any thoughts of waking up with his white shirt ruined by lipstick stains, or with sheets with sparkles ground into them. That kind of thing has never excited him before, tacky loud bright neon mess, and it’s too much for someone so set in his ways to consider that something new might turn him on. But it does. 

Even worse is when Ren decides to meet Hux on the level that he prefers, dressed so elegant and sleek and perfectly tailored. As if Ren looked into his heart and saw what his weakness was and disguised himself so perfectly that Hux fell headfirst into lust with the stranger who had showed up at the Golden Tiger. 

Hux gets a moment of petty pleasure, though. He takes a few days off from work because he gets a bad cold and no way does he want to be so close to people with that going on, especially since his energy is down to zero and he wouldn’t really be able to perform. He drags himself to Trader Joe’s, just wearing jeans and a hoodie emblazoned with the logo of the college that left him with so much debt that it’s the reason he got into this business in the first place, and his glasses because he doesn’t feel like bothering with his contact lenses. He’s deliberating which crackers will go best with the soup he’s chosen when he realizes Ren is coming down the aisle, also dressed down but recognizable, still a little bit of glitter around his temples, his basket full of bagels and cream cheese. For a wild moment, Hux considers teasing him, demanding that Ren make him some breakfast, but he decides he’d rather see if Ren even notices him first. 

Just as he had no idea who Ren was that night he came to the Golden Tiger for the first time, Ren doesn’t put together that this hunched over, sniffing stranger in a sweatshirt is Hux. Ren looks right at him without a trace of recognition. It helps that the hoodie is covering his hair. 

Hux’s cold goes away and he comes back to work more determined than ever to wipe that smirk off Ren’s face. 

He had thought of something as he settled into bed with a mug of soup and crackers after coming back from the store, trying to distract himself from the thought of breakfast with Ren. If treating Ren coldly when he came to the Golden Tiger hadn’t worked out, he’d just do the opposite. He’d become a fucking nuisance, just the way that he annoyed Ren by showing up at the French Kiss all the time, flirting idly, offering money, just on the other side of the table. 

When he comes back to work, he makes a beeline for Ren, who is of course there waiting for him, lounging around like he owns the place. 

“Did you miss me?” Hux asks.

“I was hoping you’d quit.”

“That’s a damn lie. You wouldn’t be back here if you thought I was gone.”

“You must have missed _me_ , if I’m getting more than a dirty look tonight.”

“You’ll be getting much more than that. If you have cash.”

Ren freezes, clearly not expecting that. Then he produces a fat roll of bills, all rolled up like a burrito. It occurs to Hux that they’ve probably just been trading the same amount of money back and forth as they come visit each other, neither of them making a profit. 

“You’ve got to to earn it first.”

Hux smiles. 

He wants to look at the money in Ren’s hand but they both know perfectly well that it’s going to end up back in Ren’s possession within 48 hours when Hux goes back to Ren’s club and makes faces at the thought of having his cheek stroked with glittery fingers. Hux looks into Ren’s face instead, not letting his gaze waver or his smile slip.

“Whatever the customer wants, the customer gets.”

“How far does that policy extend? Does such a classy establishment really pimp out its best dancers?”

“It extends to anything within reason,” Hux answers. “During business hours.”

Ren is floored, Hux can tell, though he’s trying not to show it. It’s the way he’s playing with the martini he ordered, squishing the olive against the rim of the glass with the stainless steel martini pick, that lets Hux know. 

“You must have been starving for some attention while you were gone,” Ren says evenly. “Did you forget how to dance in all that time?”

“All that time?” Hux’s irritation shows for a moment, he can’t help it. “I was only gone for two days!”

He recovers, slipping back into his sultry, purring Work Voice. 

“Maybe it just felt like longer because you were here waiting and I didn’t show.”

“Prove it, then.” Ren riffles the cash. “How much for a lap dance?”

How neatly he had trapped Ren. How neatly he had trapped himself.

Hux is good at this. He’s done yoga since he was a teenager, and he’s lithe and flexible and knows just how to move, how fast and how slow. He likes being able to move to some music, and he likes surprising people who don’t realize that he’s had quite a lot of practice with lap dances. Customers who think, for whatever reason, he’s stuffy or shy or new, he quickly teaches a valuable lesson, one that’s worth a lot of money. 

Brushing against barely contained boners is so common that it’s not even amusing usually, anymore (when he was new, it always made him laugh when he was done, but now he hardly notices) but this is the first time he is just as aroused as he works himself, slow, slow, slow on Ren. 

Ren is holding the edge of the table for dear life. Reaches for his drink and overshoots, knocks it over as he paws for it. Hux doesn’t break character. The mess is too good of a metaphor and it makes him feel powerful. 

When he’s finished, the martini is dripping onto the granite floor and someone is already rushing over to clean up–such a snooty establishment has no tolerance for mess–and a few of Hux’s coworkers are side-eyeing this particular encounter and people are moving around and talking and dancing and paying and leaving but for that brief second, they both feel like the only people in the room, a cliche that Hux has never believed was real until now.

“Pay up,” he says, finally breaking the spell.

Ren is silent. Strands of hair frame his face, and the colored lights shine blue and red and pink in his eyes and he looks otherworldly. He pays. 

Much, much later, when Hux is finished with his shift and walking back out to his car, already pawing at his jacket pocket for a cigarette, Ren waves him over, apparently on his way to the parking lot himself. 

“What?” Hux calls.

Ren approaches. 

“Where were you, anyway?”

Hux raises an eyebrow.

“I was sick. Didn’t want to sneeze on any of the Daddy Morebucks.”

“I, uh. Am glad you’re better.”

Hux jingles his keys, smiling. Rolls his eyes just for show.

“You performing at amateur hour tomorrow night?”

“It’s a theme night. Ocean theme. Mermaids and sirens and shit.”

“That sounds horribly tacky.”

“My shift starts at 10.”

Hux lights his cigarette and watches Ren climb into the jet-black Mustang that stuck out like a sore fucking thumb in the Trader Joe’s parking lot among the Beetles and station wagons with stickers still wearing their Gore 2000 bumper stickers. He pulls away like he’s late for something, though Hux suspects he always drives this way. He waits til he’s done with his cigarette to get into his own car and count his money. Divides it out between bill money, savings for his next trip (Amsterdam) and money to take with him to the French Kiss tomorrow. Ocean theme. 10 pm.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux makes a bold move at the ocean-themed night at Ren's club.

Theme night at the French Kiss was precisely as garish as Hux was expecting it to be. The lighting was in various shades of neon blue and purple with that shimmer effect going, to give the impression of being under the sea. Just like a high school dance, just with more nudity, Hux thought, taking a seat in a spot he knew Ren would see him. The featured cocktails were heavy on the rum and blue curacao, and had plastic fish floating in them, little booze-soaked choking hazards. Hux is feeling the secondhand embarrassment creep up on him like a fast-moving fever as he spots someone dressed as the hapless, rhythm-deprived shark from Katy Perry's Super Bowl halftime show, and someone else dressed as Ursula the Sea Witch. He orders another fishy drink. 

It would be just like Ren to bring him here just to embarrass the fuck out of him, wouldn't it? If the other dancers at the Golden Tiger could see Hux here now, he'd be either laughed out of the place or fired. 

Hux shakes his glass around so the plastic fish wobbles. Thinks about his plans for the next few days. There's supposed to be really bad weather starting tomorrow. He'd been hoping to meet up with some friends, maybe get breakfast, but maybe it wasn't a good idea to get people driving out to meet him just now... Anything to distract him from the fact that someone in a very small sailor suit is using a butterfly net (which, he supposes, is supposed to approximate some kind of fishing net) to 'catch' customers. 

It takes him a moment to realize Ren was approaching him. Floating towards him, more like. Hux had expected something over-the-top, sure, but in a stupid way. Big Finding Nemo suit or something like that, only with fishnets and a thong underneath. Instead, Ren looks breathtaking, looking too beautiful and fancy to belong in the party store bargain bin that the rest of this place is, in something that would be not at all out of place at the Golden Tiger. He's dressed as a betta fish, covered in translucent silks in dark red that fade to black, his legs and chest obscured but definitely visible beneath. Black and reddish-plum makeup that makes him look somewhere between a prince and an outlaw. 

"Good evening," Ren purrs.

"Jesus H. Christ," Hux says. There's nothing else to say. 

There is just the faintest shimmer to the fabric, which is glowing wine-purple under the blue neon. "I had a feeling you'd make it," Ren says, moving nice and slow.

"I had a night off," Hux says. 

"Mm." Ren, as always, is so adept at getting into character, whether it's a glitter-soaked slut or the villain in someone else's act, but the betta fish seems to be something new, something sensuous and dark and _fuck_. Hux hates how good he is at getting the upper hand. "And nothing else to do?"

"It was worth seeing a single act here that wasn't from the community theater costume box," Hux admits.

"You like? I worked hard on this one."

"Did you?"

Ren settles in Hux's lap, nodding. "But maybe not as hard as you," he suggests, not grabbing or anything--this is a touchy club, sure, but even Ren won't go right for the dick, wouldn't go that far at work--but the way he says it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Hux wasn't hard before (ha!), he is now. 

Ren's dark eyes look so lovely under the shimmer light that Hux hears himself saying things that he shouldn't say.

"You're too good for this place. We both know that."

Ren grins, showing teeth that look blue, then purple, then blue as the lights change. "Think if you can't best me, you'll recruit me?"

"That isn't what I said. But you're talented. This club's tacky as shit, come on. You're much better."

"This club's fun," Ren says mildly, placing a sticky glossy kiss on Hux's hand, then his fingers. "They take good care of me, and the regulars love being able to kick back. No one worries about taking themselves too seriously. Doesn't that appeal to you, ever?"

"Only in private," Hux answers. 

"You'll make me too curious about your private life. How many Drunken Sailors have you had? You're actually being complimentary."

"The fact I'm here is complimentary."

"How long are you staying?"

"Depends on when your shift is over."

A little smile plays over Ren's lips. Someone walks past and it makes the silks ripple and flutter, like Ren really is underwater. "What should I be doing when my shift is over, then?"

Something bold grabs Hux's brain and he whispers, low, his mouth just shy of Ren's painted skin, "Getting in my BMW and fucking me."

It's a gamble.

It pays off.

Ren leans down, brushes a lock of hair out of Hux's face, and breathes, "I get off at midnight tonight. Your car better be unlocked."

He gets up drifts away, shimmering darkly as he disappears somewhere, and Hux feels the world shift a few degrees as he goes, and it's not just from those fish drinks. He idly plucks the plastic fish out of the glass as he strains to see Ren's white legs under the colored smokey silks, his ass, anything he can manage, knowing that if he's patient he'll be rewarded, but also dying at the thought of making it to midnight.

He squeezes the fish and blue curacao spits out of its mouth. It's one of those bathtub toys. He shrugs and sprays what remains from the fish's belly into his mouth. Why not kick back awhile?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Messy handjobs in Hux's car, and Hux makes an offer than surprises them both.

From start to finish, this whole idea is a mess. Whether it was in his haste to get to Hux's car or just for dramatic flair--either is fully possible--Ren hasn't bothered to change out of his betta costume, so he seems to float out into the night, shimmering under the streetlight. For a moment, it's the most beautiful thing Hux might have ever seen--the harsh white of the light somehow manages to flatter Ren's features, making his eyes look fully black, the plum of his lips black, his black hair tousled just so, he looks like some sort of swirling incubus. Then he yanks on the door of the wrong car.

For fuck's sake. 

Hux raps sharply on the window of the backseat, where he's been sitting, scrolling his phone with sweaty hands for the last fifteen minutes, and Ren looks over, squints. The windows are tinted but the sound gets the point across, and Ren, pretending nothing had happened, glides over. 

There's nothing graceful about the way he clambers into the backseat with Hux--more like a St. Bernard than an underwater creature. As elegantly as he moves, he's still about nine miles of leg and his eagerness is making him sloppy. He closes the door on the long train of the silks. 

"You didn't stand me up," Ren says, his voice low but rumbling with delight, climbing on top of him without any preamble, just helping himself to Hux's lap. When Hux is in Ren's lap, it feels proportioned, somehow right. When Ren is in Hux's, he feels like he's engaging in some kind of erotic crushing. Ren's thighs are so solid that those flimsy silks seem like even more of a tease. 

"It would have been a waste of my time and yours, wouldn't it?" 

This isn't really sex, by the way, not so much as it is some heavy petting-fest. For all Hux's slick talk back in the club, he's not exactly prepared to fuck in the car--he doesn't have any travel-sized lube squirreled away in the glove compartment, and he doesn't actually make a practice of spontaneous sex, not with customers and not when he's the customer. But they're both hard as hell, making out with all the finesse of high schoolers in the backseat, and Hux can feel so much of Ren's body through this costume, fuck--!

"Touch me," he hears Ren say, right into his mouth. There's a light greasy feeling around his mouth, from all that purple lipstick smearing everywhere. Such a simple request, and yet....

Hux tugs Ren's underwear down enough to free his cock and gets to work pumping him. 

"Jesus, not so hard," Ren growls, tossing his hair back. "You're not milking a fucking cow."

"So much for acts of passion," Hux shoots back, slowing his pace a hair. He guesses Ren has a point, though, and at least he's not crowing about finally getting Hux to make any show of not actually hating him. 

"Just pretend you're jerking yourself off," Ren suggests. 

When Hux shifts, he can see the blood-dark stain of Ren's lipstick all over his arm. Ren's done bitching now, now that Hux has hit just the right speed for him, and the way he carries on is exactly as noisy and shameless as Hux was hoping, deep down. 

"Fuck," Ren says. "Fuck, _fuck_!" This serves as both an encouragement to Hux to keep going and a way for Ren to show off, his makeup clearly smeared even in the low light, there's a blot of something dark on his front teeth because he's been biting his lip--god, the shit he uses must be some kind of industrial stage makeup because there's still a good bit of it left on his face--

Ren tries to tell Hux not to stop but his orgasm catches him before he can get the command all the way out and before either of them can process what's happening, there's come all over the leg of Hux's trousers. 

The look on Ren's face is masklike, waiting for Hux to react. In the quiet, they can hear the rain that has begun tapping on the roof of the car while they were screwing around. 

There's a split second of total uncomprehension and then Hux lets out a highly ungentlemanly snort of laughter. 

"You're a mess, you know that?"

The tension has broken and Ren settles, sated, against the black leather seats, the lipstick stains on his teeth visible again when he smiles. "I could say the same for you."

"Your fault."

"You gonna kick me out into the rain now? Like a sad little puppy?"

"Not until you get me to come first."

"And then I'll be dumped out onto the pavement with my mascara all running, huh?"

Hux looks at this man, this smug, tacky, irritating man who had just come all over his pants, this man who can't seem to stop tricking him, this gorgeous disaster, and says, "If you don't feel like staying the night at my place, I'll be happy to leave you on the side of the road."

It takes Ren aback, even as he tries to recover and snark back. "An invitation? I'm assuming the sex dungeon where I'll be tortured is implicit."

"Mercilessly," Hux promises.

"Better than sitting in bed browsing Twitter." Ren pulls himself off Hux's lap, trying to rub off the come stain with his thumb like a mother cleaning a child's cheek, but just spreading it, embedding it. "Oh, well. Come on, hoss, get in the driver's seat and drive me home."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are so perfectly domestic the morning after the encounter in the car that it's almost inevitable that some bad news comes along to ruin things.

This is unprecedented.

Hux wakes up the next morning to the continued sound of rain and wind. Truth be told, it was nasty when they drove home last night and it's only getting nastier. Hux can only assume his garbage bins are halfway across the state by now, and there are sure to be some downed power lines. A total mess.

He brings his focus to the other mess, the one inside the house, the one next to him in bed. He's seen Ren without makeup on--when he came to the Golden Tiger in a suit--but this is something entirely new, mussed and bare. He's a sound sleeper, doesn't wiggle or move around or hum the way Hux has been told he does. Hux has had a policy about letting strangers spend the night; namely, don't. But Ren isn't really a stranger, he decides. Not really a friend, that's not the right word at all, and enemy seems far too dramatic. Acquaintance is too clinical. Rival, he guesses, would be closest. Do rivals have awkward grasping encounters in the back of cars? They are maybe fuckbuddies now, he decides. Hux burrows deeper under the blanket, listening to the sound of the rain, watching Ren's chest rise and fall. 

After a few minutes, Ren stirs.

"What time is it?" he asks, groping for his phone on the side table, but even with his albatross wingspan it's too far away from where he's nestled.

"9:26." There's a clock on Hux's desk that announces the time in bright red letters, so he barely has to shift his head to see.

"In the morning?"

"Of course in the morning, you ass."

"It's so dark out."

"It's pouring," Hux points out. "It's been pouring all night."

"Feels like night still."

"It does," Hux concedes. "We could order something for breakfast."

"What, you got room service?" Ren turns so he's on his side, arranges himself so he's mostly buried in the comforter, just his nose and eyes sticking out. 

"Better, I have Bagel Beast." It means nothing to Ren. "The local bagel place delivers. For an exorbitant fee. But when you're hung over you'll sign over your firstborn for a bagel sandwich."

"Get us some."

It is, Hux thinks again, unprecedented. Domestic as fuck. The noun 'us' is one that he lingers on a little longer than he thinks he should. The voice in his head that has always told him to not get involved with any cheap plastic sparkle strippers is curiously silent. There's only the sound of the rain. Hux reaches for his own phone, ready to place the order, but there's a frantic series of text alerts from the National Weather Service that makes him sit up to read more closely.

"What's wrong?" Ren asks.

"Weather service app is like, losing its mind. Dangerous high winds, flood potential, that kind of stuff."

Bagel Beast's Facebook page confirms they are closed, for the safety of the employees. Everyone else on social media is talking about the weather too, confirming they're safe, reporting on power outages and downed trees. It's a little bit unnerving. 

"Guess we'll have to make it ourselves," Hux says, setting his phone back down. Ren grunts in assent.

"God damn it, and I just bought bagels a couples days ago, too."

"I know. I saw you getting them at Trader Joe's."

"You saw me at Trader Joe's?" Ren asks, coming out of his cocoon. "When was that?"

"When I was sick. You didn't recognize me."

"Were you dressed up?"

"I was sick, so no, Ren."

"Well, no wonder, then." Ren moves closer so he can get a better look at Hux. "I've never seen you dressed down. Besides now."

Hux is indeed dressed down. Blue cotton briefs and a sleeveless shirt he's had since high school endorsing the Baltimore Ravens. He doesn't like sleeping naked, and he put it all on right before crashing and right after letting Ren suck a hickey into his thigh. 

"Everyone has to dress down eventually. Even me."

Ren laughs, comes even closer. Hux braces himself, not sure how he feels about the possibility of a good morning kiss from at best a fuckbuddy, but then it happens and it's so _nice_ , so nice that he realizes he needs to just shut his brain up and let it happen. 

They keep at it like this, just slow and easy in the dim grey of the room, no real urgency, slow and sleepy, and Hux keeps thinking nice, nice, it's nice, it's so nice--

\--and Ren's phone chimes.

"Bet it's my boss telling me not to come tonight," Ren murmurs, barely pulled away from Hux's mouth. "A night off, what will I even do with myself?"

"Don't count your chickens," Hux warns, his mouth turning up into a sly smile.

Ren clambers across the bed and retrieves his phone. "It's the boss all right," he crows. "Hello? Yes, I'm safe, don't worry. Are--are you okay?"

Hux feels his palms begin to sweat as he watches the expression on Ren's face change from amusement to fear.

"Okay, you're okay though, right? You weren't there?....Okay, well, that's what matters. Nobody was there?" His boss apparently confirms this, and Ren breathes a sigh of relief. "I mean, that's what I'd be worried about.....okay, good. Okay, tell me exactly what happened."

There's a minute of silence as Ren listens. Hux listens to him listening, stone-faced.

"How bad is it?" Ren asks, and his voice almost sounds small. A beat. "How long do you think....? I mean, I guess there's no way to know yet. They'll see when the storm passes, right? Right, yeah...No, I mean--that's not something you need to worry about right now. I'll figure something out. You need to focus on--on that. Okay. Well. Thanks for telling me. Please let me know if anything else, you know, comes up. Okay. Take care, okay?"

Hux thinks he has put the basic pieces together but he still asks what happened.

"An old tree collapsed on the building, the Kiss, early this morning," Ren says, sounding so very even and calm that Hux knows it's forced. "And a lot of rain is getting in. Building damage and water damage. Obviously it's insured, but...I don't know. I don't know when it'll be usable. And of course my boss is freaking out."

"Oh my God," Hux says. "I--are you okay?" He winces at how fake he thinks he sounds, how rote. But he doesn't know what else to say. 

Ren heaves a long sigh. "I mean, I'm not going to have a job for awhile, so--I don't know. I have money saved, I'm not stupid, but until I find out how long it'll be--I don't know." He lies back down on the bed, biting his lip. "I'm sorry. It's not your concern, Hux. You don't have to--worry or anything. I can get out of your hair."

The way he says that last part, he sounds like he's going to cry. Like he desperately wants to be told he doesn't have to get out of Hux's hair.

Hux finds his voice and says, quietly, "Why don't I go make something for us to eat?" When he sees Ren about to get up, he says-- "Stay here. I'll be back."

It's an invitation to cry in private, maybe make a phone call. Hux knows he has bread for toast, at least, and orange juice from when he was sick. He has some fruit, and he has jam, and butter, and he has a place for Ren to work in the meantime, if only he can think of a way to make the offer without seeming like he's pitying him, or being overly charitable. Well. He can figure that out after breakfast, he decides, jamming down the lever on the toaster and listening to it hum.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things have become dizzyingly domestic, but a job offer from Hux could ruin this fragile thing that they've built.

Hux would have liked to put everything on a tray, so he could take it into the bedroom, but the closest thing that he has is a shallow cardboard box that he got some shirts delivered in. He tears off the flaps and places the toast, fruit, butter, jam and fruit inside, each one nestled in like he's transporting kittens. Hopefully enough time has passed that he won't walk in on Ren doing anything that will make him feel embarrassed or resentful.

Ren had cried, that much is clear. His eyes, though not bloodshot, are rimmed in red, like he had cried a little bit and then stopped, and his voice is all scratchy and uneven. Hux swallows and then says, in a bright clear businesslike way:

"So. I have strawberry jam and grape jelly. Butter, too. Apples and bananas..."

Ren smiles, and there's nothing forced about it. It sends a little shiver of happiness up Hux's back.

"All three."

"At the _same time_?"

"No, three pieces of toast, you loon. Though I guess strawberry and grape would be okay together."

"I mean, it's a free country," Hux says, sitting down and adjusting the box of stuff so it's between them. "Do what you like. Just don't make me watch you eat a breakfast abomination."

"I can't believe you're going to let me eat something with crumbs in your bed."

Hux laughs. "These need to be washed, so go nuts, I guess. I'll change them after...." He's about to say _after you're gone_ but he has only just realized how lonely and dark the house will feel without him. "After lunch, maybe. When I have some time. I've got to get this to-do list taken care of..."

"You better not try and fucking drive anywhere until this weather lets up," Ren warns, slathering his first piece of toast with a layer of grape jelly thick as the mortar between bricks. "If it doesn't kill you, I will."

"I think the thought of killing me delights you," Hux says, letting the butter soak into his slice of toast. 

"It does, but more in the way of like, killing you in a stage competition or something. Not seeing you doing something unsafe."

A finger of warmth prods at Hux's heart, though he simply answers, "My to-do list can all be done from home, don't worry. And I would say you're welcome to stay, but really you're my prisoner. You're not going anywhere until, like you said, the weather is better."

"Will you chain me up, then?" Ren's smile goes all mischevious, and Hux surprises himself by placing a buttery kiss on his lips. Then Ren's mouth opens up and he tastes so sweet that breakfast goes fully abandoned for a few minutes while they make out with the lights on, a completely new experience for Hux, who has been hiding in the dimness for the entire time this whatever-this-is sort of affair was going on. 

Toast in bed. Kissing with the lights on. Somehow the word 'fuckbuddies' has already lost its relevance, and they've only fucked one time.

"When did you start at the Kiss?" Hux asks softly, when they part, so he can take a bite of apple.

"Oh gosh, two years ago? I think they--well, I shouldn't tell you this, you'll use it against me." Ren laughs. "I think they hired me out of pity, because I really wanted it, and you know, technique can be taught but not enthusiasm. So they ran me through the grinder. I'd come home literally crying in pain. But I had been going there for awhile, throughout college, and I wanted to do it too."

"Easy money?"

"Nothing easy about it. But the money doesn't hurt."

Hux couldn't have said it better himself. "It seems like everyone looks out for each other there."

"Absolutely."

"Would you be able to work in an environment where things weren't quite so...cuddly?"

Ren gives him a sharp look at he applies another thick layer of jam, strawberry this time, to his second slice of toast. "What do you mean?"

"If, while things are getting sorted out at the Kiss, you wanted to--"

"You're offering me a job, with you? At your place?"

It's a bit hard to tell from Ren's tone if he's insulted or flattered. Mostly he just sounds surprised. "I can't just _give_ you a job, I'm not in charge of hiring. But I can arrange an audition for you."

Ren sets down the knife and the glass jar back inside the cardboard box with a clink. "I-I have to think about it," he says. He takes a quick glance at Hux and adds, "I don't want you to think I'm not appreciative. I think I must sound awfully ungrateful, to have to think about it. But my boss really sees the Tiger as competition, and what if I go there, and I have to--make a choice? I couldn't choose any place over the one that's been so good to me."

It's clear Ren is speaking from the heart, and he looks upset again, holding the piece of toast and staring into the globs of jam like there's advice hidden in there. Hux can't deny that he feels a little burned at the reply, but he also gets it.. Suppose he were in the same situation. He wouldn't turn his back on the Tiger. 

"But also," Ren goes on, more quietly. "My boss doesn't want us to be out of work. If it were under very clear terms that this was temporary, that I could go back, I think it would be okay."

"Ren," Hux says, not wanting to laugh because that seems rude, but also wanting to reassure him. "I'm not trying to put you in like, indentured servitude. You can leave when you want. You're not property."

"No, I don't mean to imply that, I just....these things can get complicated."

Hux finds himself taking Ren's free hand, the one that's not occupied with toast, and squeezing it. "Well, first you'd have to make the grade, anyway."

"Fuck you," Ren says, easy and bright. "I could kill that audition, no problem. That's not what I'm worried about."

"I can't wait to see it."

Hux allows himself a moment to imagine the audition, getting to sit in on that particular performance. It's not like Ren hasn't danced with just him in mind, but this feels different somehow. Letting Ren play in his playground, so to speak. In his fantasy, Ren is drenched in white and gold, pearls and gold jewelry. Still sparkly and shiny, but more subdued and elegant, the best of both worlds.

Ren leans in, kisses Hux's neck and says, "Are you trying to mold me in your image, Hux?"

He is.

"You know I'm always going to be a cheap plastic kind of guy, Hux. This isn't _Pretty Woman_. I'm going to always buy everything at the Dollar Tree and Party City. You can't change that."

"Are you worried about what will happen when someone gives you nice things?"

Ren doesn't respond to that, just eats his toast, and Hux wonders if he has cut a little too close to the bone. He wants to be forgiven, so he offers more kisses, more and more, until they're making out again. Hux in Ren's lap, his foot dangerously close to knocking over their whole breakfast setup. Ren still a mess of tangled hair and tangled clothes and dripped jam. _Just let things play out, for God's sake,_ thinks Hux. _Don't scare him away..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I'm back from my unintentional Tigerlily hiatus! So many kisses to everyone I've been teasing a return to this story with, now that I'm finally delivering. You are the most sweet and patient babies.

**Author's Note:**

> I did it! I finally started wrangling all the related [Tumblr drabbles](http://theweddingofthefoxes.tumblr.com/tagged/stripper+au/) into one place. A zillion thanks to cosleia for getting the ball rolling and for everyone who sent prompts!


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